


Something Wicked this Way....

by Mari_Knickerbocker



Series: Like Two Ships in the Night [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Not Beta Read, Not Britpicked, Not Really Character Death, well attempt at comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3650007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mari_Knickerbocker/pseuds/Mari_Knickerbocker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve just solved a mystery with Agatha Christie (what a rush!) and now it was on to the next great adventure. There’s the galaxy before them, all of time and space left to be explored but before they can even pick where to go next the TARDIS takes off. It seems that that old blue box already has a destination in mind for them. The Doctor has a house call to make and he better not be late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Wicked this Way....

**Author's Note:**

> Also know as the one-shot in which the author for some unfathomable reason decided to write a character with an Elizabethan/Shakespearean dialect.

It’s the Doctor and Donna traversing, with enviable aplomb, through the star filled expanses of the known galaxy. They were like two peas in a pod, best mates always having a laugh and a lark; never fretting as long as the two of them and the TARDIS were up for one more jaunt through time and space. Fresh off from an adventure with Agatha Christie (!) they were waiting and raring to go for the next one. _But where too next? We’ve already explored Ancient Rome – Pompeii, very nice apart from the whole exploding volcano incident; oh well check that off the ol’ bucket list – and we’ve just sampled London in the 1920s…_ Where else could they go, other than anywhere they wanted? It was always nice to have some general idea of where they wanted to end up before setting the TARDIS loose. And anywhere was just too vague; they might want to visit one of the moons of Poosh but they needed to be somewhere else. _Chancy business that, never certain I’m in the right place until things start happening._

“Any thoughts on our next destination” The Doctor asked Donna flashing her a smile. _When in doubt always ask a fellow traveler._ “This cruise ship is yours to command.”

“Oi! Cheeky,” she reprimanded him with good humor calling him out. “Speaking about cruises I wouldn’t mind visiting somewhere tropical.”

“Aren’t you afraid of catching sunburn,” he inquired genuinely curious, “you gingers are rather prone to it.”

(He had an entire cortex of his brain devoted just to trivia on gingers; he kept hoping that in one of these regenerations he’d end up ginger. Never hurt to be prepared, and traveling with Donna was his chance to learn from a real-life ginger. So far he’s learned that most of his trivia was false, nothing more than pop culture bias. Point in fact; gingers _did_ have souls).

“So are the Irish! Or anyone with fair skin! Why do you think they went through the trouble of inventing sunscreen?” 

“Actually, sunscreen was invented by a race of aquatic beings with vampire like tendencies who wanted to live beyond the canals of Venice,” he tossed out that explanation without even thinking about it. When the silence extended longer than he was used to – Donna knew how to chatter – he glanced over to find her staring at him utterly flabbergasted.

“You’re ‘aving me on!”

He only smiled in reply. Throughout their conversation the Doctor had been fiddling about with the TARDIS’s controls, not quite settled on a final destination but hoping that inspiration would strike him. Suddenly the TARDIS’s various knobs, levers and buttons began to be pushed, turned, and pulled all on their own volition. 

“Oi! Spaceman!” Donna exclaimed as she was thrown roughly against the railing by the unexpected lurching of the TARDIS as it took off. “What have I told you about warning me afore taking off!?!”

“Not my fault Donna!” He shot back even as he was nearly jerked off of his feet, “It’s the TARDIS! She’s decided that there’s somewhere we need to be. Immediately, apparently,” he added as their passage became choppier. He didn’t mind turbulence, just as long as he was the one directing it.

“I hope it’s somewhere important! I’m going to have bruises for a month after this.”

The Doctor gave her what he’d hoped was an apologetic glance. They did not waste any more breath with talking. Instead they both focused on hanging on for dear life and remaining (mostly) upright. There was nothing else to do really. It was not often that the old girl took it into her head to just whisk them away – usually she’d wait until they were already in flight and just switch the destination on him. (That’s what he liked about traveling with this particular ship; she might be an older model but she always knew just how to surprise him and when he was in the greatest need of one.) it wasn’t long before that familiar whirring nose began to wind down and they could feel the distinctive thud of the TARDIS landing. Thrown to the floor during the landing – he wondered if the old girl did that on purpose – the Doctor pulled himself up the center console to standing near the environmental checks.

“Where has this loony thing taken us?” Donna demanded.

The Doctor patted the center console in a soothing reassuring manner. _She didn’t mean it dear, she’s just shocked that’s all._ he read the stats on the viewfinder than re-read them twice. He blinked to clear his vision than glanced at the viewfinder again. He was dismayed to see that they were the same as before, he’d wanted so badly to have been mistaken. Nope. The viewfinder still stubbornly displayed the same information:

_**30th October 1692; Salem, Massachusetts.**_

He gaped at the viewfinder; wishing and willing it to say something else, anything else.

“Why have you gone and brought us here,” he demanded of the time machine. Predictably there was no answer.

“What is it, where are we,” Donna asked coming around to stand next to him. “Where ever we are it can’t be worse than standing in Pompeii on volcano day.”

“Oh no Donna it’s so much worse than that.” He told her his expression grave. Then gesturing to the TARDIS’s doors he continued; “Outside these doors is Salem Massachusetts and we’ve arrived on Halloween at the tail end of the Witch Trials.”

“Good thing we’re not witches then.”

“To the people out there we might as well be!” He countered running his hands through his hair in agitation. “Think about it Donna we’re from the future, we have technology that they can’t even dream up yet! If we wrong foot it here we’ll end hanged as witches.”

“Well then let’s go elsewhere.”

Approving of that suggestion the Doctor turned to fire up the TARDIS once again only to have the machine refuse to cooperate. 

“Oh _c’mon!_ Don’t be **daft!** ” 

The TARDIS remained obstinately unresponsive. He groaned failed his arms about uselessly then started pacing.

“Alright now, no need for a tizzy,” Donna commented. “Obviously the TARDIS brought us here for a reason, like with the Ood. So let’s just take a look.”

She moved towards the doors and propped one open then leaned her head out to take a look around.

“Doctor we’re in a field!” She shouted over her shoulder. He came over and stood behind her peering out around her.

“A field _?_ Why would the TARDIS bring us to a field?”

“Don’t know, why don’t we climb this here hill and see what’s going on.”

Sharing a conspiratorial look they stepped outside of the TARDIS pulling the door shut behind them. They climbed through the grassy meadow and brambling shrubbery until they reached the hilltop. Before them laid a rolling meadow of green grass starting to brown as autumn progressed, sparsely populated by flowers and more shrubbery; nearly in the center of the field there was a large black walnut. Underneath the walnut’s branches they could see a handful of horses and their riders.

Peering out from under his hand the Doctor tried to get a better look.

“What is it?”

He didn’t reply right away. As he watched one of the individuals down there toss a rope up over one of the walnut’s low hanging branches then tie it off around the trees trunk. The other end of the rope appeared to be wrapped casually around the neck of a young woman. Before he could even think to shout and distract the men, someone down there slapped the rear of the chestnut bay she sat upon startling the horse and causing the animal to run out from underneath her. The Doctor gasped audibly as the rope went taunt hanging the girl by her neck.

“What happened?” Donna demanded placing a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. He did not answer right away. After a few minutes of watching the girl swing lazily in the breeze the remaining four men gathered up the reigns to her discarded bay and turned to ride off.

“Donna get down!” He instructed pulling Donna down with him when it looked like the men would be riding pass their current position. With an undignified squawk Donna feel beside him in the grass behind a hawthorn bush.

The Doctor peaked through the branches and foliage of the shrubbery to watch as the four horsemen and one rider less horse cantor past. As soon as he thought they were gone and would not be coming back he was up like a shot and running towards the black walnut. Donna followed closely behind. Reaching the tree he deliberately avoid looking at its strange dangling fruit, instead focusing on whipping out his sonic screwdriver and pointing it at the loop of rope around its trunk. 

“C’mon, c’mon,” he murmured praying for the sonic to burn through the thick rope quickly. 

“Oh my god,” Donna gasped out covering her mouth with one hand whilst the other hovered over her heart.

The girl in her puritan garb dangled uselessly, mockingly, from the branch in front of them. The Doctor spared her a quick glance then returned his attention to the rope, his expression going beyond grim and settling into a cold fury. _Humans so bloody stupid, fearing someone just because she held a set of different beliefs. That’s not a proper reason for cold blooded murder. There’s no reason, good or bad, for murder._ Finally the sonic cut through the last few lingering bits of twine. They gave up with a faint snap and the suddenly lax rope whipped away from the trunk, slithering back up and over the branch, even as the lifeless body dropped to the ground with an audible, physically felt, thump.

“Is she…” Donna started to ask staring at the ragdoll form tears welling in her eyes.

The Doctor looked mournfully at the girl, her neck hung limply at an unnatural angle telling him all he needed to know. It must have broken straight away the moment she was pulled loose from her saddle. Knowing it was pointless he still knelt down beside the body and pressed two fingers to the pulse point on her neck. His seeking fingers found nothing just as he had known they would.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered and Donna choked on a sob, “I’m so very, very, sorry.”

He wasn’t certain if that last bit was said for Donna’s benefit or if it was meant for the corpse.

……

When he returned from the TARDIS with a pair of shovels it was to discover that Donna had removed the noose from around the girl’s neck. In the process she must have knocked the bonnet off of her head for now her hair was visible. Donna had also laid her head back down so that her neck was no longer tilted at an ugly angle but lined up properly with the rest of her spine. It wasn’t the obvious tokens of Donna’s tender heart that caused him to come to a standstill just a few feet away from the body staring in disbelief. It was the sight of that familiar shade of golden hair.

_Avery….._

Oh how could he have been so stupid! The TARDIS had brought him here to prevent this and he had dithered away precious moments. _Stupid, stupid! I could have saved her!_

“Doctor?”

His expression grew quizzical as he examined the body. _How could I not arrive in time to save Avery from this in sixteen nighty-two to only bump into her in New New York in the year five billion and twenty-three?_ He dropped the shovels his gaze hardening as he tried to puzzle things out. The Doctor tried to recall the conversation from that day but all he could hear was Rose’s voice, Rose’s distress as she talked about the hospital and the Sisters of Plenitude. He had the feeling that there was an important bit of information locked away in the memory he just had to wriggle it out. He had just about put his finger on it when the girl’s eyes suddenly snapped open.

Startled he jumped, which caused Donna to jump and yell in surprise. The former corpse leapt up spitting and hissing like a half drowned cat, hands held out in front of her claw like with her finger nails growing into deadly sharpness. Her pupils blown so wide from the surplus adrenaline that only a slim lining of golden iris could still be seen. Her head whipped back and forth (on a suddenly fully functioning neck) between Donna and the Doctor whilst she took a cautious step or two backwards away from them. Unknowingly she backed herself up against the trunk of the gallows tree. She stiffened at the touch of the bark then whipped around and as quick as a flash pulled herself up the trunk to perch on the very branch she once hung from.

Donna and the Doctor could only stare at her both of their mouths gaping open, slack jawed with disbelief.

“Did she..”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Is she….”

“So it would seem.” He supplied sparing a glance for his traveling companion. Donna took a bracing breath to steady herself before nodding.

“What should we do?”

“Try and talk her down I suppose.”

The spent the next twenty minuets speaking in soothing tones sending pleasantries and reassurances towards the wild creature that was perched like a bizarre ill-omened bird in the walnut tree. Nothing appeared to sooth her to bring her back from the edge of barbarity and restore her human reasoning. It occurred to him that this version of Avery was a great deal younger than any other one he’d encountered before. The Doctor had never seen this side to the woman, never even guessed that she would, that she could act out in such a fashion. The Avery he knew would have never allowed herself to devolve into such savagery; she was not an animal.

But this version of the woman appeared to have no qualms about acting like an animal. The Doctor was not certain if he could fault her for that. Living on the edge of the frontier in the New World, she would need every advantage she could find.

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” he tried in a pacifying tone knowing that that was ridiculous and a pointless attempt. The warning growl he got in reply only served to underline the utter hopelessness of his attempt.

“Oh, Doctor we might as well let her calm down on her own,” Donna suggested setting herself down on a partially exposed root. “You’re resorting to cat-calls, actual bloody cat-calls.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he admitted throwing himself down on the ground, paying no never mind to the potential ruin of his suit. He did not want to think of this as giving up but so far all of their efforts had be for naught.

They sat there in companionable silence underneath the walnut tree. Donna watching the sun as it slowly lowered in the west and the Doctor staring balefully at the forgotten coil of rope. Neither one of them kept track of the time they spent sitting there. Slowly the low growling from the branch above them began to subside, they didn’t notice when it faded away altogether.

A slim figure dropped down from the tree and crouched before them for a minute before straightening up to stand. Her tawny hair had loosened from it puritan bun to lay wild and loose about her shoulders. It caught the last few rays of the dying sun and reflected the light back at it. Her pupils were no longer dilated, her gaze having settled into a shrewd, cagey, thoughtfulness that was just as disconcerting in its sudden humanity as the animal ferocity from before.

“Why look at you, you’re lovely you are,” he muttered under his breath beginning to understand and appreciate the woman’s mutant abilities. She flinched at the sound of his voice, even though Donna did not hear him – he’d intended for no one to hear that – and curled a lip in silent warning. (She had lifted it just enough for him to get a peek at an overly sharp eyetooth). 

“Who art thee.” She demanded ignoring his ill-timed whispered remarks. Although she sounded composed the Doctor could see from her bearing that she was prepared to either fight or flee.

Slowly the Doctor stood and motioned for Donna to do the same. He kept his arms down by his side, neither hiding them in a pocket or behind his back. He wanted to be able to telegraph to the girl every movement he made. It appeared to be the wisest course of action to take, he could see some of the stiffness in her posture lessen in response.

“I’m the Doctor and this is Donna Noble.” He answered pointing first to himself then to Donna. The woman smiled gently at the younger girl. 

He was amazed by how young Avery looked; she did not appear more than twenty and barely twenty at that. An older Avery, fully in charge of all her faculties and with an iron clad will keeping her instincts in check, could be dangerous and unpredictable as it was. A younger Avery, obviously ruled more by instinct than reason, was a complete unknown. _One wrong move and I’ll be facing regeneration and Donna will be dead._ The Doctor was fully aware that just because Avery was no longer bearing her claws it did not make her any less deadly. It was a sobering thought.

“Thou has't a strange mann’r of dressing,” she observed, “Art thee a witch, a daemon, a ghoul or a goblin?”

“None of those things,” he reassured her, “we're travelers just popped by for a quick visit. We’ll be on our way shortly.”

She stared at them in open hostility and sniffed the air in a very noticeable fashion. _Very young and still arrogant with it,_ he observed. The Avery of the future had far more tact and a greater respect for social graces.

“Thee smell as if 't be true.” 

“Well I’m glad you agree.”

She huffed out a weak chuckle and snorted sardonically at that. It was nice to see that she still had the same sense of humor.

“Do you mind telling us who you are?”

“A daemon,” she remarked giving him a macabre smile that showed off her fangs and holding her hands up to display her claws. 

The Doctor did not react to it. He sensed that her actions steamed from self-loathing and were not intended as a threat. Neither did Donna. _Good on you Donna,_ the Earth woman was made of sterner stuff than he thought to give her credit for. It was in moments like these that he considered himself very lucky in his current choice of traveling companion. 

The girl dropped her hands and retracted both fangs and claws after a few moments of waiting for them to react and inspiring nothing but polite disinterest instead of the hysterics she had come to expect. She tilted her head quizzically, traces of a newfound respect showing in her golden irises. The young woman relaxed even further, enough to give them a brief self-mocking smirk that showed off a long pointed canine. 

“Is that why,” Donna ventured motioning half-heartedly towards the coil of rope.

“Those gents left me dancing a gallows jig,” the girl supplied with cavalier amusement.

“Twas not the first time n’r wilt it be the last time I am murdered for mine sins.” She continued with a studied air of dispassion. The girl wanted them to think that she was unmoved by the fact that just a few hours ago she had been executed for being different. But the Doctor could see through her act.

 _Oh my dear girl. That’s quite a large chip on your shoulders you’re nursing. It must be such an exhausting burden. Carrying all that weight around._ He wondered what had happened to her to cause such cynicism. But he was more curious as to what she would go through and the people she would meet that wore it down and convinced her to let it go. The Avery he first met certainly possessed a (at times) sarcastic wit but she had not hardened her heart against others. This version, although she was showing them glimpses of the girl behind the curtain, was entirely closed off – hiding behind large thick walls of her own making.

“What will you do now?” Donna asked. The girl withdrew into herself at that question folding her arms defensively over her chest and looking off into the east; the same direction the men had rode off into after finishing there gruesome work.

“I cannot go back.” She offered an edge of sorrow weaving its way through her hitherto gruff voice and mellowing it. 

“P'rhaps I will go f'rth and join the natives in their wild ways,” she pondered aloud, “'or perchance I shalt hide in the wilderness forsaking the company of all mankind.”

“Not all mankind is like those blokes,” the Doctor reassured her, “w-e-l-l alright a great deal of humanity is exactly like those men I’ll grant you. But that’s now. Humanity has yet to mature, they’ll learn and grown from their mistakes. ”

He wanted to say that they learned not to repeat the same mistakes that they were no longer so xenophobic; but he couldn’t in good conscious give her false hope. She seemed to sense his hesitation favoring him with a small indulgent smile. The sadness he already saw etched into her young features was enough to pull at even the hardest of hearts. (And the Doctor for all of his posturing was a man with two tender hearts). She’d already seen so much of the worse that humanity could do that she could barely believe mankind would be any different from what she knew.

“Thee speaketh of dreams and fantasy.”

“Oh, maybe but why don’t you judge for yourself.”

“P’rhaps one day it shalt be as thou sayeth Doctor. But f’r now I wilt wend mine own path, hidden from man.” She half turned then facing the setting sun and shifting from foot to foot clearly anxious to be off. He noticed for the first time that she was barefooted.

“It’s worth it,” Donna announced unexpectedly, the girl gave the ginger woman a speculative side eye. “It’s worth it, believing in humanity. I know right now you don’t want anything to do with us humans and I can’t say I blame you. But we’re not all monsters.”

“Thee art not, Donna Noble,” she addressed the 21st century woman with unexpected warmth, “thine is a kind heart, a noble heart and I take courage in it. Thine heart as well sir Doctor, although thou has't an unfamiliar heartbeat, twain instead of one. Methinks thou art not all thee claim to be. Perchance thee art something more, something strange, like mine own self.”

“Oh, you’ve rumbled me,” he exclaimed in false surprise and with good humor. “Tell you what, you come back and give humanity another go in a couple centuries or so and I’ll clue in on what I am.”

She stared at the two of them for a moment looking comforted by the puzzle they presented. With genuine mirth she responded: 

“Thou speaketh in riddles but I shalt endeavor to do as thee ask of me.”

She flashed them both a cheeky grin then without further preamble lifted her skirts and took off like a shot running towards the far western tree line. Donna and the Doctor walked slowly back to the waiting TARDIS in tempered silence. As they walked Donna slipped her arm through the Doctors, wordlessly offering him comfort with the physical contact.

“You knew her,” the woman observed once again managing to surprise him with her insight.

“I’ve met her before,” was all he offered. Donna hummed thoughtfully by his side.

“Was she the reason this loony thing brought us here,” Donna asked indicating the TARDIS, “so she could met you for the first time, in the right order.”

“I suppose so,” he agreed, “looks like I had had an appointment to keep.”

“Well Spaceman, you’ve made your house call,” she teased him with a warm smile, “where to next?”

**Author's Note:**

> I am not an expert on Elizabethan/Shakespearean dialect, I used an internet translator, so if anyone has any suggestions or pointers it would be greatly appreciated.


End file.
